A to Z Album and Gig Reviews
Quite rightly, Bill's regarded as one of the key songwriters of his generation, with a truly distinctive writing and performing voice and a career which thus far spans three decades, from the mid-70s (Oller Boller) to Y2K (The Writing Of Tipperary), and his output is renowned for its extraordinary consistency and quality. Bill's exhaustive CV includes stints as a solo performer and with the Albion Band and as founder member of The Home Service, also authoring TV and radio music and famed for his long-time work with the National Theatre in collaboration with John Tams. For a long time now, though, whilst other artists have continued to record his songs, virtually none of his own performances have been available for some years, the original vinyl issues long deleted of course, so until now 1995's excellent Winter With Flowers album (Fledg'ling) formed Bill's only CD entry in the current catalogue (aside from the appearance of John O' Dreams in last year's Acoustic Folk Box.
Technically, Unicorns is a new release, but it actually also serves as a retrospective collection. Confused? - well, don't be. In response to the constant stream of requests for recordings wherever he appeared, Bill took himself and his guitars into a remote cottage for three days to record a selection of his songs (chosen by himself and his fans) for CD posterity. What was initially intended to be a single-CD "greatest hits" quickly became a fulsome double (lasting well over two hours) - an instant measure of just how many unequivocally fine songs he's written over the years, some of these all too often still (inexplicably) unheralded even by those who choose to cover them! Genuinely timeless songs that were originally released on classic albums such as Rough Music, Sunny Memories, The Wild West Show and Urban Legend are here dusted down and performed by today's Bill with an immediacy and total freshness of commitment that's completely devoid of auto-pilot cash-in. The passage of time has, inevitably, occasioned some minor changes to a few of the songs since those earlier versions (as Bill himself so evocatively puts it, "songs leave you like children leave home"). He's in absolutely great voice too, while I marvel anew at just how damned fine and individually stylish a guitarist (6-string, 12-string or slide) he is. Compelling ain't the word! And there are five songs among the 36 recorded here that, incredibly, Bill's not recorded before (these include Rainbow Waistcoat, Aqaba and The Old Man's Song).
Anyone familiar with Bill's oeuvre will realise that his songs cover a wide stylistic gamut, from distinctly English-trad-idiom to country to ragtime to neo-music-hall to contemporary chanson. You may not like every one, but you can't fail to admire Bill's consummate craftsmanship as an intelligent, and strikingly effective, wordsmith, whatever the idiom; a real gift for memorable and poetic observation is his hallmark. This superb and very realistically-priced set (not much more than the usual cost of a single CD) is an absolutely essential purchase - no cliché intended.
www.workingjoe.co.uk
www.billcaddick.co.uk
David Kidman
Andrew's a founder member of that vibrant young Northumbrian trio Roll A Penny (see review of their CD Swingin' Hinnies in the NetRhythms archive). Here after several years of studying traditional music, he's produced a more contemporary-sounding solo album, which is an extremely accomplished effort presenting a thoughtful yet admirably spontaneous-sounding set comprising both tunes and songs. The tunes are all self-penned, and are suitably perky, quirky and sprightly in character - some, like the strathspey-inflected Seven Streets, even turn out to be insidiously catchy too! It's the songs, however, that predominate; all but three are self-penned, and these turn out to be outstanding, with a deft feel for both economy in construction and expression as well as a mature appreciation of tradition. The opening Emigrant's Song has the kind of leaping melodic compass that I associate with the songs of Bernie Parry, while O My Lady takes the Keel Row into gentler Steve Tilston territory and Widow's Walk is a minor masterpiece of evocative poetic writing. Of the genuinely traditional songs, Andrew's arrangement of Sandgate Wife's Dandling Song, to the sole accompaniment of fiddle, is attractively managed, and (perhaps against all the odds) even his choice of an unusual, tripping jig-rhythm treatment of Jock O' Hazeldean works, while Andrew clearly feels no shame in utilising Tim O'Brien's gorgeous old-timey-styled setting of Love Is Pleasing as a basis for his own. Playing fiddle, guitar, Northumbrian pipes, whistles, trumpets, bass and percussion over the course of the album, Andrew achieves an exciting and satisfying instrumental blend by judicious multitracking without overegging the pudding, although it must be stressed that Andrew takes great pride in pulling out as much emotion and interest as possible from just two "voices" (ie singer and guitar or fiddle) wherever practical, and the feeling of spontaneous interaction he's striving for is clearly paramount - and successfully achieved. This is a very appealing CD, although due to its sheer abundance of gently inventive ideas it may not reveal all its treasures absolutely immediately - but when it does hook you in, you can't stop playing it ...
David Kidman
David Kidman
Rewind compiles together 14 tracks originally recorded by J.J. during the 70s and early 80s (we don't have exact dates), but the title is mildly misleading 'cos it's not a revisit of previously released material but a first-time airing for some tapes that had lain in storage under the care of producer Audie Ashworth for the best part of 25 years. The eight Cale originals here are absolutely typical of his distinctive sound and approach, the laid-back easy-rolling bluesy rootsiness of the "Tulsa Sound" that characterises his early years, absorbing influences from country, jazz and rock'n'roll, and which was arguably to prove so inspirational for successive generations and especially so in defining the sound of artists like Dire Straits. Songs like Seven Day Woman could've come off any of those classic early albums from Naturally onwards, fitting like a glove into Cale's recorded canon and sounding utterly timeless and fresh today ...
Unusually for Cale, these tapes also contain several cover versions, which are presented in a block towards the beginning of this CD: Cale has only rarely recorded other writers' material, but he sure puts his personal stamp on the six non-original songs here; these include Randy Newman's Rollin', Waylon Jennings' Waymore's Blues and Eric Clapton's Golden Ring (repaying the compliment of Clapton's championing his work generally and covering his own After Midnight in particular). Other musicians appearing on these tapes include Spooner Oldham, Richard Thompson, Glen D. Hardin, Tim Drummond and Jim Keltner - so we're not being palmed off with half-baked session outtakes here I assure you, but it's solid-state archetypal Cale all the way (shame the total playing-time's only 37 minutes tho', leading me to wonder if there's gonna be more where these came from). Either way, Cale devotees will need this CD, for it's both an essential supplement to the early albums and a valuable collection in its own right.
www.jjcale.com
www.myspace.com/jjcale
David Kidman September 2007
From the get-go one knows this is a goodie! Danger fits like a comfortable well-worn favourite. This is going to be a kick back, chill and let the music flow over and around ~ a total immersion of the senses ~ album. Heads In Georgia is a beautifully mellow number, lyrics make me think of those halcyon days of Capricorn soulful blues but transplanted to southern California. As one would expect the playing is immaculate throughout but not in the sanitised synthetic style of so much 'modern' music ~ they are just all so darned competent that it is spot on all the time and yet feels so loose. Shut your eyes and you can all but see the odd nod and smile being exchanged in the studio because it feels soooo good and right.
When This War Is Over clicks along the tracks with all the feel of the old days riding the railroads ~ relentless and unforgiving but with the vocal very under- stated and yet so strong ~ it would be a weird sort of joy if it were not the blues. But it is. And somehow it is. A feeling of 'togetherness' and solidarity knowing that there are others who feel the same way about war. Some brilliant bass riffs on this track that manage to sound the anger at the concept of war. It is weird how soothing to the soul this is despite the lyrical content, it lowers the blood pressure, maybe it is the endearing familiarity of the form but Sporting Life Blues, the Brownie McGhee song, does just that.
The pathos in Clapton's vocal on Hard To Thrill plucks at the soul's strings, evoking a primeval maternal urge to hold out both arms and a box of tissues - which is patently ridiculous. Then the piano player subtly demands the same response. The deft and delicate mixing of this CD is incomparable. There's a more cynical edge with Anyway The Wind Blows and instrumental breaks with lots happening but oh so cleverly, like watching the majesty of a high wind on the tree tops. And then floating gently back down to earth like a leaf on a hint of a soft breeze into Three Little Girls. I almost feel as though I am intruding into a private space ~ but then that has always been one of Clapton's strengths ~ that ability to suck you into his world with his music. And indeed with the music and lyrics of JJ Cale's as well. As though we have managed to somehow sidle round the door and quietly sit in on their private jam.
The guitar work, combined with the lyrics, of Last Will And Testament, are making me gently weep. Maybe it is our ages that bring with it both a sense of our own mortality, along with a profound gratitude for living. We have all made it this far. There is more to come for most of us. How much we do not know, nor where we will go with it, but there is some master plan. What a fitting tribute the dedication to the memory of Billy Preston this CD is. Who Am I Telling You? How beautiful and apposite.
And so the curtain starts to fall on Ride The River. I had not expected this CD to be quite so much of a spiritual experience for me. Nor to provoke quite so much reflective thought. It had to be good ~ that was a given ~ but this good? Proof again that the whole is greater than the sum of all the parts and Cale and Clapton form an amazingly strong but gentle and formidable team. Eric certainly knew what he was doing when he followed his instincts and set about doing this CD. Something, I for one, would not have missed for the world. A must have. No. Essential. If it were vinyl it would have to be two copies - it is going to be played so much! Clapton is God? Close!
www.jjcalemusic.com
www.ericclapton.com
Miranda Ward May 2007
www.myspace.com/mirandawarduk
J J Cale - To Tulsa and Back (EMI)
I needn't have worried. From the first beat of the opener "My Gal", I was in familiar territory. A wonderful, laid-back JJ Cale world where the roads are empty, the beer is cold and life hums along to the lazy burble of a big V8. The problem is that the more I listened, the more I was convinced that it wasn't quite firing on all cylinders. Not that the album is in any way poor, it's just that I have one or two minor niggles about what could have been a really top-notch CD.
I like my blues to be played by real musicians not machines. Half of the songs on "To Tulsa and Back" feature a live band and the other half are solo efforts by Cale himself. This is a mix that he has used successfully since his 1972 debut "Naturally". Thing is though, the unaccompanied tracks on this album are backed by the slightly synthetic sound of a drum machine. For the most part, this didn't matter. "Stone River" in particular was well played and the essential feel of the music combined with Cale's legendary gravelly voice meant that I barely noticed the band weren't there anymore.
Unfortunately, it wasn't to last. Things came to a head with "Rio". I was on holiday at the time and every bar on the island featured a keyboard player belting out karaoke versions of old chart hits with a synthesised Latin beat and pre-programmed instruments. "Rio" was just like that, complete with manufactured "brass" section. The familiar cracked and croaking Cale vocals were there as usual, yet even this couldn't disguise the fact that the music sounded not only false, but also out of place on what was for the most part a blues album. To me it just sounded wrong.
Luckily for me, I didn't give up, because from Jim Karstein's first real brush stroke on a real snare drum, "These Blues" got me right back in the groove. What a relief. After the temporary misfire, things smoothed out and just got better and better. "Motormouth" was excellent and when you listen to the words of "Blues for Mama", you won't fail to be moved. In the end, I was left feeling that the final banjo picking track "Another Song" came around way too soon.
Incidentally, has anyone else noticed the similarity in guitar and vocal styles between JJ Cale and Britain's own Mark Knopfler? Take a listen and you'll see what I mean.
Andy Pearson
This is self-effacing, Tulsa-born JJ Cale's first 'live' offering in an album career which commenced in 1971 with the wonderful 'Naturally' on Shelter and has remained consistently excellent throughout. Nowadays playing a Gibson L5 (if the album cover is to be believed) rather than his old $50 expensively-customised Harmony and living in a house in southern California rather that his Airstream trailer in a trailer park, JJ's music is still a benchmark for simplicity, style and elegance.
'Live' tracks are taken from concerts in USA and Europe from '90 to '96. The whoops of joy from the audience, captured on this album, were echoed by me writing the review. Oh my! did this one push my buttons. His songs may be better known to some for being recorded by 'great and good' Eric Clapton, Santana, The Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Mavericks and more, but no one does it like JJ Cale; the effortless perfection of that laid-back and rhythmic blues shuffle, that confidential mumble - like he's telling you stuff you'll really want to know - and those flashes of understated guitar brilliance which have influenced better-known guitarists such as Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler.
From the opening track, an outstanding solo acoustic After Midnight, bass player Bill Raffensperger joins him for Old Man, and the full band come on for Call Me The Breeze and Sensitive Kind (from Cargegie Hall '96) for one of the greatest recorded live performances I can remember. These four perfect tracks are worth the cost of the album in themselves - and then they are are joined by memorable versions of Cocaine, Money Talks, River Boat Song, Living Here Too, Mama Don't Allow, People Lie, Humdinger, Thirteen Days, Magnolia, and Ride Me High - the distinctive style of the legendary guitar genius sounding as fresh as ever. More than "highly recommended".
Sue Cavendish
Paris 1919 was the (outwardly) gentle-as-the-Welsh-accent record that occupied a kind of no-man's-land between Cale's two post-Velvets Columbia albums (bold experimentation with Terry Riley on Church Of Anthrax then the rockist surrealism of Vintage Violence) and his arguably even more maverick Island recordings. Its elegant gentility and supreme musical accessibility turned out to be deceptive; indeed, Cale himself has even described it as "an example of the nicest ways of saying something ugly". As the writer of this reissue's booklet note posits, the album title's timeline (the Versailles Conference) was after all a harbinger of future bloodshed, and even the most luxurious melodies can't hide the rivers of blood - and acute sense of loss - running through the intelligent, knowingly literate (if at times cryptic) lyrics of these songs. The album therefore repays much more than just a superficial rosy-tinted revisit, and its latest reissue fittingly expands the original nine tracks by the addition of no less than eleven "sketches and roughs" for the album. These inevitably vary in interest, from a beautifully dark, viola-rich Hanky Panky Nohow and a more chansonnier yet strangely satisfying solo-piano-backed version of the title track (with a rather lovely Brian-Wilson-inspired vocal bridge passage) to a poignant yet curiously enigmatic previously-unreleased song, the country-waltz-tinged Burned Out Affair. Listening to these "roughs" did have another intriguing benefit too: that of re-focusing on the effect the contributions of Cale's diverse backing crew (Little Feat members Lowell George and Ritchie Hayward, Jazz Crusader Wilton Felder and members of the UCLA Symphony Orchestra!) had on the final mixes - for instance, A Child's Christmas In Wales makes a more direct impact in its "rough" state, with a more prominent organ part in place of that slide-guitar riffing, and the more opulent yet sensitively-scored fuller-orchestral setting given to the second alternative version of the title track gives a fabulous sense of panoramic scale to the enterprise. In truth, I actually prefer many of these "rough mixes" (the majority being anything but rough in fact), where the ambiguity of the lyrics is in my opinion better complemented by the fresher yet paradoxically more considered settings. Even the messy, out-of-tune piano on Graham Greene has a certain charm! In all, this is a fascinating and enlightening reissue.
David Kidman July 2006
Calexico - Feast of Wire (City Slang)
Always providing a welcome blend of bluesy Mariachi desert rock Americana and border stories, this is easily their finest album yet with its mix of cinematic epic and atmospheric sparsity. Peppered with instrumental interludes, it scuffs its dust blown heart through such downbeat visions as Sunken Waltz and the plaintively sad Not Even Stevie Nicks -where Joey Burns shows off his rarely heard falsetto - and the hushed spook of Woven Birds. But while Across The Wire may be a typical brass hued Calexico TexMex number they also pull a few rugs from under the feet of expectations with the jazztronics Attack El Robot! Attack!, the parping jazz blast Crumble and the self descriptive Dub Latina. They've also just lifted one of the album's stand outs, the string drenched , heavy limbed melancholy of Black Heart, for an EP of reworks and remixes that include a jazz dub version of that, a 3am smoky cellar sax mourning retool of Robot and the Go Tan Project's samba lurch of Quattro.
Mike Davies
Harp player Alvin 'Big Al' Calhoun and guitarist Henry Townsend get together for this August 1979 session that was recorded in Townsend's home in St Louis, a fact that only adds to the charm of the album. The session, recorded by Arcola founder Bob West, was suggested by Townsend after West had recorded him earlier that month. The result was Harmonica Blues and it is a great example of the art of harmonica playing. Calhoun takes on the vocal duties for the first half of the album and his smokey voice compliments his harp and Townsend's, sometime sparse, yet effective, guitar style.
Black Panther is a good, powerful opener with both guys on form and is followed by the often covered and probably not too politically correct nowadays, Good Morning Little Schoolgirl - good version though. The instrumental Al's Boogie-Woogie shows all of the facets of Calhoun's playing and his songwriting skill is shown on Buy Me An Airplane, the only track on the album written by him although if he could write this good then why aren't there more of his tracks present?
Shake Your Boogie sounds as if he's going to blow his lungs out as he powers his way through and this is followed by his homage to Little Walter, It's Too Late/My Babe, on which he does not disgrace himself. Calhoun said that if he could pick any guitar players to play with then he'd choose the Meyers Brothers who were, incidentally Little Walter's men. The last track sung by Calhoun is That's All Right, which is a wailing blues in the classic mould with Townsend's guitar twanging away in the background.
Henry Townsend and his wife Vernell take over the vocal duties for the rest of the album and the style changes from Calhoun's raw delivery to the Townsend's more polished vocals. Betty Lou is standard fare but Can't You See has the Townsend's in harmony on one of the highlights of the set. Townsend writes the final six tracks on the album and he shows his class with Love Was In Our Hearts and Wake Up Old Maid, allowing Calhoun to express himself fully but he saves his best for Tears Come Rollin' Down. This is the track of the album and Vernell takes the lead vocal. She sings the song perfectly, Henry delivers the guitar fills with venom and Big Al plays understated harmonica brilliantly.
The final two tracks are Tin Pan Alley and Old Story Blues, the former sang by Vernell and the latter by Henry. The closing song is the more upbeat but Tin Pan Alley wins the contest of the singers. Calhoun is not to be outdone and produces some of his best work on Old Story Blues. If this is an indication of what is in the Arcola archives then hopefully they'll be opened again soon.
David Blue
This fascinating 72-minute disc is rather unassumingly subtitled "folk songs and spirituals". It contains vital and committed performances of authentic spirituals, shout songs from the Sea Islands, prison ballads and rare secular songs from the African-American folk tradition. Andrew's own excellent rootsy singing is found to be ideal to the task, and he's augmented by the individual and combined voices of around a dozen other singers, including within their ranks Bruce Soper, Tony Dale, Sue Demel, Katherine Davis, Darwin McBeth Walton, Richard Shindell, Valerie Carter-Brown and Runako Robinson (and most of these get a solo!).
The beauteous richness of these voices is given a perfectly sensitive amount of instrumental support (guitars, banjo, cello, fiddle, trumpet, piano, harmonica and sundry percussion) that lends a brilliance and power to the vocal contributions, throwing them into relief without ever overwhelming them. Bound To Go is the fruit of Andrew's extensive research into old songbooks and collections, and he's unearthed some fabulous music (quite a bit of it unfamiliar to me). The majority of the disc's 35 tracks are quite short, but such is the nature and diversity of the selections that the listener neither feels shortchanged nor gets the chance to be bored.
The accompanying 24-page booklet contains exhaustive notes, bibliography and discography, all prefaced by what amounts to a mini-thesis by Andrew which does so much more than merely expound his motivation for the project - for it's a labour of love which has its roots in his mother's own involvement in activism. In accordance with Andrew's opening statement "folk songs carry the emotional truth of our history", every piece on the disc (whether a concise, pithy rhyme or holler, or the extended chain-gang lament No More Cane On The Brazos) is sung with entirely appropriate integrity, authentic expression, sympathy and affection, and an infectious intensity.
Aside from Andrew's own spine-tingling near-acappella rendition of Brazos (accompanied only by some rudimentary drum-banging), highlights come thick and fast: the bleak slave-song O'er The Crossing, Big Llou Johnson's deep-felt plantation-song Way Up On The Mountain, a sterling group rendition of Lost John, Sue Demel's wonderfully sturdy Michael Haul The Boat Ashore, and Tyisha Williams' tender lullaby Open The Window, Noah. No sir, there's none of yer vacuous happy-clappy here - this is a tremendously powerful album with a great sense of atmosphere and the deepest possible commitment that shines through both in the performances themselves and the exceptionally fine recording and presentation. Prepare yourself for a heap of neck-prickling moments. This is a landmark release, I'm convinced.
www.waterbug.com
www.andrewcalhoun.com
David Kidman April 2008
This is a kind of sidestep for Waterbug label founder Andrew - whereas all his other releases thus far have concentrated on his own fine original songs, this is a foray into exclusively traditional sources, in this case folk ballads from Scotland. But actually it's not aeons removed from Andrew's own work, for it's still shot through with his trademark thoughtfulness of execution and his signature warm vocal tones. Also, close listening will reveal how closely Andrew's experience of those traditional ballads informs his own writing: not least in the poetical impact, and the keen sense of structure and development, and onward progress within a song - that's in every sense, not just in how to tell a story and keep listeners' attention.
We learn from Andrew's pithy yet informative booklet notes that he grew up listening to Ewan MacColl's recordings, and he has clearly taken on board the very principles behind Ewan's interpretations of these age-old tales. He recognises the ballads' unique role in the oral tradition, and has taken pains to ensure, through careful translation and occasional rewriting, the effective communication of their timeless preoccupations and morality and thus convey their continuing relevance today. His actual choice of ballads is an interesting one; though his selection is taken exclusively from the Child collection, he intersperses some of the celebrated "heavyweights" that we know and love (King Orfeo, Glenlogie, Clark Colven, Hughie Graeme, Eppie Morrie) with more well-known fare (Two Sisters, The Unquiet Grave) and some less often heard items (The Battle Of Harlaw, Telfer's Cows).
This is not a CD of unrelieved doom, gloom and murder either, for there's the delectable "Chaucerian farce" of A Shake In The Basket for light relief - and several of the ballads are taken at a sensibly brisk tempo without a trace of lugubriousness! Andrew has creatively and credibly reworked some of the original published sources - for example, Kinmont Willie (one of many Child ballads collected and then extensively rewritten by Sir Walter Scott) has been brought closer to the historical record of the events, while Clark Colven brings in some information from a Danish variant.
Andrew's readings are without exception intelligent and scholarly, sufficiently intense without sounding offputting, not in any way forbidding and always musical, accessible and listenable. Four of the twelve ballads employ just Andrew's guitar, with accompaniment stylings ranging from simple but effective rippling bardic chords (Clark Colven) to more intricate yet undistracting embellishment. Two are sung acappella - Hughie Grime (sic) solo (a measured yet suitably intense highlight), and the lively Battle Of Harlaw with Bob Soper and Rob Stroup in tow. Andrew's own voice is rich and his delivery and phrasing wholly pleasing; although he uses and respects the original sources, he suffers neither from his natural accent nor from any forced Scottishness in his diction. On the rest of the tracks Andrew has enlisted Tracy Grammer (violin), Elisabeth Nicholson (harp), Joe Root (accordion), Donny Wright (bass) and the aforementioned Bob and Rob (fiddle, mandola) in various permutations, except for the stirring tale of Eppie Morrie which enjoys a wonderfully full-on (and fulsome), driving treatment courtesy of the admirable William Pint & Felicia Dale.
My conclusion is that this vital and enterprising release ought to appeal to the serious enthusiast of traditional balladry as much as to the lover of quality contemporary songwriting who's keen to gain an insight into a writer's inspirations by exploring his sources in his own company.
David Kidman
Founder of the esteemed artists' cooperative label Waterbug, Connecticut-born Andrew's also a prolific singer-songwriter and poet in his own right. To date he's brought out nine solo albums (six on CD) and two books of poetry, and achieved a high degree of artistic consistency over the 22-year timespan covered by these releases. For a good ten years prior to that first album (1983's Water Street), though - in fact, since the early 70s - Andrew had been busily writing songs; when in December 2004 Andrew moved back into the house where he'd written most of them and started looking at them again, he realised that he still knew them all by heart and decided to get them recorded afresh for posterity, hence this new CD. And it proves to be a fascinating disc, a journey through Andrew's formative years as a songwriter that displays his talent as being well-formed virtually from the start. Perhaps some songs, such as Atmospheres (dating from 1973), aren't as confident melodically as Andrew's later work, but they're still interesting pointers to what he calls the "psychic" strand of his songwriting - as is Broken Boundaries, which concerns his uncanny premonition of a car accident. The 16 songs on Staring At The Sun date from between 1973 and 1981 (the title of this collection coming from a line in History), and contain examples of most of the strands that have since defined themselves within Andrew's writing: image-rich poetic journeys, atmospheric portraits (John's Wife), simple yet emotionally-charged little lieder (like From Time To Time and I Have Run And I Have Crawled, both of which prefigure later classics such as If..., and the haunting Deliver Me), and fun comic observations where lines tumble out over each other (like on the breakneck A Seat In The Mezzanine). Andrew's songs exhibit a masterly economy and a highly developed sense of literacy, and his warm, resonant, individual baritone voice and gentle yet fulfilling fingerpicking style prove the ideal vehicle for his creations. Maybe this release isn't the first-choice for an Andrew Calhoun album to buy if you want an accommodating introduction to the very best of his writing, but nevertheless it comes close to being representative in terms of his unique songwriting personality, all the while proving that even Andrew's early work is inspired and far better than mere juvenilia, providing a valuable insight into his subsequent artistic development.
David Kidman
Califone arose out of Red Red Meat, from whence came founder members Tim Rutili and Ben Massarella; their approach to music-making has always been one born of a love of experimenting with sparse and unusual instrumental textures. Their latest offering, Roots And Crowns, follows a particularly intense period of activity after Quicksand/Cradlesnakes, during which they recorded four albums in three years. However, the new album betrays no sign of drying-up of inspiration, in fact quite the reverse, for it draws much of its white-heat inventiveness from the situation the band found itself in when its equipment was burgled during their last tour and they were forced to stretch the sound envelope with increasingly limited resources. Although the uniquely atmospheric qualities of Califone's previous work are retained, there's a new freshness about this latest album that seems born more than anything else out of a revitalised attention to minor detail, a willingness to take time over it, that informs the overall texture. Folk-psych meets alt-, you could say, on cuts like Burned By The Christians, whereas the Califone cover of Psychic TV's Orchids (the album's only non-original) seems as natural as twilight blending into the dark duvet of its twisted nu-folk bedfellows. From the eccentric fractured rhythms of Black Metal Valentine to the layered organic experiments of Spider's House and 3 Legged Animals, mixing traditional with modern sound-sources, the fibrous tendrils of the various and different instrumental strands weave into and through the music like the roots and crowns of the album title, an apt metaphor if ever there was one. What these guys do with just a violin, banjo, guitars, a smattering of percussion and a sensitively restrained modicum of electronica, is all pretty creative stuff. There are countless intriguing touches, too many to comment on here - you just need to listen with an open ear. Me, I think this is Califone's most immediate and persuasive album to date.
David Kidman March 2007
Lynchpin of Smog and married to Joanna Newsom, Callahan's first solo album is only really a departure in as much as he's abdicated production, design and arranging duties to focus on his playing, writing and singing. So, basically a Smog album then with its free flowing train of thought lyrics, chugging country flavours, and a low baritone that frequently paints him as a young Lenny Cohen. It's a comparison that's particularly striking on the talk-sing opening piano led track From The Rivers To The Ocean, a meditation on time passing where lines like 'have faith in worthless knowledge' and 'I could tell you about the river or we could just get in' sound like something Cohen might have penned with Bill delivering them in much the same fashion. The Cohen touch is evident too on the funkier marching rhythm Diamond Dancer but elsewhere it's Lou Reed that comes to mind on the sunny lollopping Honeymoon Child. the shimmeringly lovely summer breeze Sycamore with its Baptist choir backing and a pulsing staccato rythmed carnival feeling Day. And then Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson are surely the guiding spirits behind the chirpy hiccuping train rhythm A Man Needs A Woman Or A Man To Be A Man and the country gospel The Wheel where, like some travelling preacher leading his congregation, Callahan speaks the lines before singing them. But, while there may be reference points, Callahan is undeniably his own man and now, trading with his own name, this is an small but individual pleasure.
www.dragcity.com/bands/callahan
www.myspace.com/toomuchtolove
Mike Davies April 2007
Ben Calvert - The Leafy Underground (Bearos)
Following on from his EP of three years back, Birmingham singer-songwriter Calvert (not the Vex Red drummer, ok) recorded parts of his debut album at the Royal Academy of Music and a small church in native Moseley. That gives you a rough idea of where he's coming from. A mix of solo numbers with just acoustic guitar, some fleshed out with flute or piano and some featuring the band he recently toured with, it's firmly in Nick Drake/Ben Watt/Syd Barrett leafy English post folk territory though there's also hints of Pete Atkin, Nico (especially on Counting Carriages), Robin Williamson, Noel Harrison (on No Lullaby) and early Roy Harper in there too.
Starlight sounding almost like a traditional troubadour number, it's dreamy, reflective sadness veined romantic stuff, Calvert's finger-picking guitar trickling like raindrops after the storm. Images of autumn gardens, wooded lanes, potting sheds, allotments and all things quintessentially old fashioned England tumble into the head as he sings of sitting watching ducks on Sunday morning while, with just voice and piano accompaniment, the haunting Ides of March sounds what you might image English spirituals to sound like if such things existed, while with big orchestration and a bigger budget Last Orders could easily translate into the sort of stadium sweller beloved of Coldplay. He's happier though to shoot for more modest targets. I'd say the new Tom McRae would be about right.
Mike Davies
Paul Camilleri - Another Sad Goodbye (Zyx Music)
I don't know if Paul means to be prophetic on Let My Guitar Talk but, believe it or not, he actually turns in one of his better vocals on this shuffling blues. It's Too Late is middle of the road soft rock and doesn't really get going but things change for the better on the slinky and smooth When The Night Comes - this is one of the album's highlights. The theme stays on the slow side for All Went Wrong so get your lighters out for this and sit back for the scorching guitar. There's some Kansas style swing blues on I Can't Wait Until Tonight and Paul turns in some snappy guitar as he really pings those strings. Ain't Givin' Up is a funky blues, driven by drummer, Steve Holley but the guitar outshines the vocal again. The album finishes with a radio edit of the earlier Lady Luck. Paul Camilleri certainly has talent as a guitarist and songwriter but it may be some time before his voice grows on you.
David Blue
Alex Campbell - Been On The Road So Long (Castle)
Widely heralded as one of the most influential and lasting of the folk singers of the European revival, the mighty and irascible Alex Campbell (who died in 1987) was the quintessential wandering troubadour who earned a reputation as a hard-travelling, hard-drinking, hard-living man, despite which he was unarguably a phenomenal live performer of traditional and contemporary material alike. It's been said that Alex cut more than a hundred albums during his 30-year singing career, many of which were one-off, one-take affairs recorded live, and often of uncertain and erratic quality. It's widely accepted, though, that the cream of his recorded output, representing his peak as a writer and performer, was the handful of releases he cut for the Transatlantic label in the mid-60s, some of which featured support from the likes of Louis Killen, Martin Carthy and Cliff Aungier. These albums (along with the largely autobiographical EP My Old Gibson Guitar, the title track of which appears here) presented sparse, earthy and committed renditions of traditional songs like I'm A Rover, The Overgate, My Singing Bird, Night Visiting Song and The Unquiet Grave (one of the picks of this side of Alex's repertoire was Glesga Peggy, which for some inexplicable reason didn't appear on any release at the time). A good number of these songs were even then folk club standards, and others have since become such, but these passionate, distinctively burring performances have rarely been surpassed, although one or two (eg Bruton Town) seem decidedly dour. In addition to the traditional songs, Alex was wont to feature a sizeable contingent of original songs, which included evocative personal numbers like Don't You Put Me Down, and touching performances of choice contemporary material like Woody Guthrie's Plane Wreck At Los Gatos. Additionally, Alex's protegée, a young nurse called Alexandra ?Sandy? Denny, appears on the final selection on this anthology, a second version of its title track that's taken from the Alex Campbell And Friends album. This new compilation, which benefits from hindsight-filled notes by David Wells, claims to draw together each and every track that Alex recorded for the label - three LPs' worth - although I'm unable to verify this as I'm ashamed to admit that I never actually owned the original LPs (though I'm aware that many LPs gave distinctly short measure in those days). Whatever, all of the songs already mentioned in this review are included on this handsome single-disc anthology, which stretches to 79 minutes and thus represents a real bargain. And when you've invested in this excellent anthology, you'd do well also to purchase the fine mid-90s two-disc set of recordings taken from the Alex Campbell tribute concert which was masterminded by Allan Taylor (still available from Allan on his own T Records label).
David Kidman
Since the 90s, this Co. Fermanagh-born singer and songwriter has concentrated on a solo career and to date has released three albums, of which Beneath The Calm is the latest. In this country, we're used to seeing Fil on tour with her husband, percussionist Tom McFarland, and sure enough Tom contributes to Fil's new album, along with Bill Shanley (guitars, dobro), Gavin Murphy (keyboards). James Blennerbasset (bass) and Anne Murnaghan (cello). But aurally speaking, the focus is firmly on Fil's distinctive voice - it's been likened to "a third McGarrigle", as much for its rich, sensitive tone and deceptive fragility as for its commanding vibrato. I hear that these very qualities can make Fil's singing a bit of an acquired taste, but when that approach suits the material Fil's unequalled at putting a song across I believe. Where it works best on this new album, as on songs like Walk Away and The Wilderness Years, the effect is truly gorgeous and absolutely riveting. Just occasionally though, as on Free My Soul, the impact is lessened by what seems an over-florid, almost too ornate delivery for the song. As for the songs themselves, this time round no less than seven of the ten are by Fil herself - these are outstanding, crafted little gems dealing with aspects of love won or lost, often conveying a refreshing, reassuring optimism. There's also a song (Lover's Eyes) which deals simply but powerfully with the experience of growing up during the Troubles. The remaining three songs come from the pens of Mick Hanly (remember Past The Point Of Rescue?) and Celine Carroll. A lovely album full of enchanting songs.
David Kidman
Grant Campbell - Postcards From Nowhere (Luna)
Glasgow born but with his spirit clearly raised in the mid-West, Campbell's debut solo album shows he's clearly picked up a few tricks and influences from years supporting the likes of The Handsome Family, Mary Gauthier and Johnny Dowd. He's never opened for Springsteen but you'll hear Bruce ringing out in there too, most notably on the Nebraska flavoured The Day Your Luck Ran Out where he seems to be going in for a soundalike contest.
Elsewhere his weary waltzing and Texas desert dustiness might find yourself thinking of a Celtic infused Steve Earle or Tom Pacheco but, strangely, also Mark Knopfler.
Though his tendency to try and bring a throaty American twang to the double tracked vocals sometimes sounds overdone, it's an impressive first outing that, with such songs as Church House, Restless Blues, Last Standing Renegade and the brushed waltzing Broken Jukebox King marks him as a voice and writer to watch.
Mike Davies
Following her collaboration with Mark Lanegan, for her new label debut the former Belle and Sebastian cellist has come over all folky, looking to recreate that leafy, cobwebby pastoral sound on a collection of self-penned and traditional numbers. It's suitably sparse and spectral with arrangements employing percussion, flute and cello, at other times leaving her vocals exposed and naked, but, as is quickly made evident by the opening O Live Is Teasin' and Willows Song (previewed on the soundtrack to the Wicker Man remake), her fragile voice isn't necessarily best suited to the pagan darkness of trad English folk.
Take that old standard Reynardine, a song long associated with Sandy Denny, where her fey, wispy reading robs the song of its dark sensuality while Hori Horo cries out for something of less gossamer persuasions.
However, that's not to decry the whole album. Imbued with grace, there are some fine moments here. Her self-penned Yearning, with what sounds like a crumhorn in the background, is a lovely medieval courtly dance number, James a frisky instrumental tumble on the acoustic guitar while the title track offers a fine instrumental showcase for her cello playing, complemented by tinkling harp.
Likewise, the original Cachel Wood is a lovely apple orchard scented summery romantic frolic by the waterside, while her whispering a capella Loving Hannah has a rough edged innocence that compensates for the limited vocal colours and is offset by the album's closing brace of tracks, the stormclouded ominous dissonant instrumental Over The Wheat and the Barley and the narcotic haze of Thursday's Child. It works better as the "hobby album" she's called it rather than an attempt to compete with the current masters of the tradfolk revival, but there's certainly some twisted beauty in its roots.
Mike Davies November 2006
Formerly of Belle & Sebastian, the feathery voiced Scottish chanteuse has joined forces with rough-throated ex Screaming Trees/Queens of The Stone Age singer Mark Lanegan. Given the strong Americana flavours of the album, it's not much of a surprise that their mix and match of honey and gravel plays like a latter day answer to Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra. Well, no problems there then.
It's a moody, desert nights on the border album, The False Husband sounding a perfect fit for some David Lynch movie with its snaky melody, breathed vocals and the balance between twangy guitar and light strings that counterpoint each of their verses while a clattering shuffle cover of Hank Williams' Ramblin' Man as she whispers in your ear over his dusty moan is clearly on the lookout for a Tarantino soundtrack.
It's also darkly atmospheric, wreathed with twisted folk shadows and cracked country vines (Black Mountain marries a Parsley, Sage melody line to Appalachian gothic textures) with Lanegan's recent immersion in Johnny Cash's American Recordings apparent on the likes of the title track, his own new song Revolver and the closing The Circus Is Leaving Town.
It's not all bottom of the boots stuff though, (Do You Wanna) Come Walk With Me is a lovely summery two step love song and Honey Child What Can I Do opens the door to let the breeze, light and a hint of 60s Motown in to a hopeful sad heart. The problem is, of course, that Lanegan's voice is so mesmerising and Campbell's so airy, that she's almost invisible on her own album.
Mike Davies, February 2006
The greatest gift of Kate Campbell's For The Living Of These Days is that it's so well played and simply produced, that it becomes all things to all men. With it, Kate Campbell has recorded a celebration. It's a celebration of her faith, a celebration of her spirit and it's also a celebration of the power and effect music can have. Even for those who perhaps don't follow the album's core message, Kate Campbell is a passionate artist and, with the legendary Spooner Oldham alongside her, she will enchant and move you, whatever it is you believe.
If this were 'merely' a collection of folk songs the strength of Campbell's voice, magnified by the clarity and directness of the songs, would be enough to make it a great one. But it is a gospel album and as such it is a slightly humbling experience. Faith to Kate Campbell is not just a set of rules to live by, Without Him is a cry from the heart, completey open, completely honest and utterly compelling. But, as it should be, it is also a thought-provoking album, Woody Guthrie's Jesus Christ, Kris Kristofferson's They Killed Him and Would They Love him In Shreveport pose disturbing and fundamental questions. Kate Campbell's religion is challenging and direct not wide-eyed and 'happy clappy', one sad conclusion to be drawn from those three songs is that, 2,000 years on little has changed.
As a spiritual album For The Living Of These Days works beautifully, as a secular album it questions. What more can you ask of it.
Michael Mee, Editor Hawick News, October 2006
Kate Campbell - Blues and Lamentations (Large River Music)
Having revisited her back catalogue for acoustic versions of live favourites last time round, for her tenth album Campbell's finally back behind the pen producing new material for a musical journey through the emotional state the blues represents rather than any geographical route map. As she says on the opening Miles of Blues, "the delta ain't the only place you might find sorrow on some face".
No gutbucket stuff here then (though she does sing 'that's all right mama' at one point on Genesis Blues) , rather her familiar mother lode of folk, Southern country, gospel and pop recorded in one takes with strict acoustic instrumentation to deliver a potent organic feel that's well attuned to Campbell's rich, loamy voice.
Filtered through songs of folk surviving hard times and their relationship to the land, the roots of blues in slavery finds expression in Freedom Train which moves from an image of Moses guiding the Israelites from Egypt to runaway slaves seeking the promised land, hounded by dogs and inspired by Harriet Tubman while Free World yearns for an acre of ground of one's own to plough.
Three covers flesh out her own material; the trad Pans of Biscuits with Guy Clark helping out on vocals, Trixie Smith's jazzy Mining Camp Blues and, unaccompanied save for a tambourine shaker, Jessie Mae Hemphill's chanting gospel Lord, Help The Poor and Needy.
Not that her own work needs bolstering. Peace Comes Stealing Slow which closes the album in fine form and features harmony from Maura O'Connell, is inspired by the WB Yeats poem, prayers by a young soldier and a homeless girl to find salvation from the world's trials and tribulations while the quietly soaring Fade To Blue describes a man who, every night, caresses the photo of his lost love.
The best though are Shallow Grave and Wheels Within Wheels. The former is a haunting lament and prayer for payback by woman whose heart has been left dead and buried by her callous lover while, underpinned by a good old Dixie slow march melody, the latter, surely destined for staple status and a wealth of cover versions, is based on the true story of Burrell Cannon. A Texas preacher in 1902, inspired by the Bible, he allegedly pre-empted the Wright Brothers by inventing a flying machine, Ezekial's Cannon, that flew once before being demolished en route by rail to the World's Fair leaving Cannon to determine God never intended man to fly. I'm not sure that, as an album, it's quite up there with her defining Monuments, but it's only shade away.
Mike Davies
Kate Campbell - The Portable Kate Campbell/Sing Me Out/Songs From The Levee (Compadre)
Campbell devotees had better have deep pockets because here's not one but three new albums. Well, two and a bit if we're being accurate. Marking a move to her new label, the bit is a remastered reissue of her 1994 debut with four bonus acoustic mix versions that includes as Trains Don't Run From Nashville and Bury Me In Bluegrass plus an alternate take of Like A Buffalo. Nice to have, but not essential. The other two albums though are much more significant. It's not new material but, produced by Will Kimbrough, they contain re-recordings of songs that have proven live favourites over the past 10 years, one with a band and the others wholly acoustic. Actually there's more to it than that.
Portable is a musical photo album of the South, a tangle of contradictions, memories and landscapes that offer the empty mansions and hillside gravestones of Wrought Iron Fences, of widows and lonely dogs (Moonpie Dreams), beloved old cars (Galaxie 500 with Nanci Griffith on harmony), crazy dreams (Bud's Sea-Mint Boat) and childhood confusions about segregation and civil rights (Crazy In Alabama, Bus 109).
Here are songs of the South's lost promises (Visions of Plenty, an achingly hymnal Look Away), yearnings for more innocent times (a Southern funky blues When Panthers Roamed In Arkansas), regrets (a lonesome Elvis looks back on his days back home in Tupelo's Too Far), the security of love (Rodney Crowell duet A Perfect World), wistful stories of bruised souls seeking escape (the girl off to See Rock City before it's too late, the cigar factory girl in Rosa's Coronas) and, most personally, poignant recollections of mom and Rosemary Clooney (Rosemary).
Sing Me Out, on which she's backed by Kimbrough, Dave Jacques, Pat Buchanan and Chris Carmichael on assorted stringy things and the odd harmonica and harmonium but no percussion, is less specifically themed in terms of landscape and location, but remains firmly reflective and rooted in songs of hope, faith and belonging.
Here then are the uplifting Heart Of Hearts, the burping Jesus and Tomatoes, Older Angel's prayer for guidance from someone who's been round the block, Ave Maria Grotto (a lovely story of devotion about a man who built a grotto from shells and broken china), the prodigal daughter welcomed home In My Mother's House, bluegrass preacher tale Signs Following, the man following God's calling and his mama's wishes in Would You Be A Parson, and Delmus Jackson, an affecting account of the simple, honest black custodian of the local church content in knowing he'd one day be welcomed by the Lord.
Death's here too in all its pain and loss; on the bluesy gospel Sing Me Out a man still mourns the death of his wife's illegitimate young daughter thirty years earlier while on the heartbreaking Who Will Pray For Junior a recently widowed mother worries about who will care for the child she more late in life when she passes away, and the jauntily closing Funeral Food notes how somehow a funeral nosh up always seems to attract those friends and relatives that never managed to pay a visit in life.
Superbly played, throughout, Campbell's achingly honest voice rings clear with the sense that these are folk and places that she not only knows, but which are a very part of the blood and history that runs through her veins and keeps her heart beating. It's enough to make you start checking the property prices.
Mike Davies
Kate Campbell - Twang On A Wire (Evangeline)
For her seventh album the Texan singer-songwriter's put her pen down for a while and decided to pay tribute to women who inspired her to take it and her guitar up in the first place. Thus a collection of country covers, delivered as the title (the one song - a paean to her angels with flattops touchstones - she did write) says, with plenty of twang, that roams the range from Lynn Anderson's Rose Garden (written by Joe South) and Jeannie C Riley's Harper Valley PTA (written by Tom To Hall) to Emmylou's Boulder to Birmingham (with Will Kimbrough channeling Gram) and, by way of Sammi Smith's 1970 version, Kristofferson's Help Me Make It Through The Night. Although Tanya Tucker's Would You Lie With Me In A Field of Stone (again written by a man, David Allan Coe) gets a Celtic martial tempo in a duet with Jeff Finlin, there's nothing radical going down here, Campbell staying fairly faithful to the sources she's celebrating, though Conway Twitty/Loretta Lynn duet Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man does switch around genders and states to accommodate the duet with Kevin Gordon.
It's not the best album she's made, but the addition of fine covers of Donna Fargo's bittersweet Funny Face (taken down a slow dance tempo notch), Jeanne Pruett's barroom cheater Honey On His Hands and Dolly's rousing encouragement to Touch Your Woman, make it an enjoyable enough time out until she gets her feet back on her own pathway.
Mike Davies
Kate Campbell - Monuments (Evangeline)
The arrival of Gillian Welch has somewhat overshadowed Campbell's Southern Gothic brand of storytelling with its roots in the tradition of Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor (and musically speaking Mickey Newbury), but as this, slightly more electric guitar driven album ably demonstrates it hasn't dulled her muse.
Inspired, most specifically on the opening William's Vision, by the folk-carvings and monumental sculptures of William Edmondson, the first African-American artist to have a solo show at New York's Museum of Modern Art and veined with images of the South and her formative years as a Baptist minister's daughter spent amid the civil rights movement, this isn't as dark as some of her earlier work despite the frequent allusions to death.
Progress doesn't impress her much, Corn In A Box an ironic comment on cloning and genetic engineering, New South a cynical observation on the 'improvements' brought by the likes of Disneyworld, Coca Cola and Italian loafers set to a New Orleans march. The past - and its passing - though clearly rings an ache in her heart as evidenced by Petrified House, the emotionally affecting Joe Louis' Furniture and Walk Among Stones, a tribute to Muscle Shoals where "for one shining moment they made hit records for the world." No coincidence that among the musicians featured on the album you'll find the legendary Spooner Oldham.
Her voice (at times akin to Kathy Mattea) crystal pure, her storytelling resonant, her heart woven from compassion, pride, dignity and spirituality, Campbell remains one of the most important voices and writers of her generation and birthright.
Note: while you're ordering a copy of this you should make it a double blessing and grab a copy of her last little publicised album, Wandering Strange (released via Eminent), her gospel album that features four of her own songs, including Bear It Away about the four girls killed in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombings in Birmingham, alongside covers of Gordon Lightfoot's The House You Live In and such gospel stalwarts as Jordan's Stormy Banks, William Cowper's There Is A Fountain.
Mike Davies
That energetic young Scottish piper, flautist/whistle player and singer can always be trusted to produce something brilliant, and this time his solo album is especially well named, for it's an exciting and yes, somewhat intrepid (in the sense of ultra-adventurous and often unexpected) collection of vocal and instrumental tracks that always feels like it's going somewhere purposeful and draws you effortlessly in with its flow. Rory's a busy guy right at the moment, being a key constituent of the mighty band NUSA of course and also now a fulltime member of Old Blind Dogs alongside guitarist Jonny Hardie - fellow NUSA man who, coincidentally, along with NUSA/Mystery Juice drummer Donald Hay, guests on this very album. The identity and known musical character of the personnel involved in what might otherwise seem just a basic trio lineup will give more than a clue to the extraordinary character of this record, fantastically light and airy with plenty of room around the players and yet lacking in neither nuance nor depth of feeling. The record's biggest ear-opener for me was the discovery of just how attractive - and versatile - a singer Rory is, capable of tackling anything from Gaelic song (and at a fast lick too!) on Song Of The Moccasins, to Björk's intriguing Jöga, via two (I think) songs of his own. And then of course there's the purely instrumental tracks, on which Rory and his gang cope equally easily and felicitously with Corinna Hewat's funky Bass Strathspey set, a medley of Breton gavotte with Northumbrian polka, a Galician muiñeira and pasodoble, and a somewhat strange variation on bluegrass (Cotton-eyed). The arrangements neatly yet flexibly straddle the divide between traditional and contemporary, with the lithe textures giving both the music and the musicians ample room to breathe. And (here's a bonus for some!) the pipes are never overbearing. So Rory's bravery has really paid off here, producing a great showcase for his energetic music-making.
www.rorycampbell.co.uk
www.nusa.co.uk
David Kidman February 2008
www.nusa.co.uk
www.verticalrecords.co.uk
David Kidman
Shelley Campbell - Blue Ridge Reveille (Nettwerk)
Originally released in Canada two years ago under the name of Auburn, it's now been rebranded for a UK reissue to put the spotlight on frequent Radiogram collaborator Campbell. Based in Vancouver but born in rural Ontario, raised on mixture of evangelical Christianity and Native American culture (her missionary father was an honorary chief of the Mohawk nation) and music that included Tennessee country as well as soul, African and the gospel of the regular revival meetings they attended.
It's all come out the other end as a Lucinda, Dolly and De Ment like blend of bluegrass and backporch country, Campbell's achingly pure crooning (and occasionally world wearily smokey) vocals over songs of lost loves, truckstops, Civil War graveyards, and backwoods nights, complemented by strummed guitar, banjo, fiddle and pedal steel.Drivin' You opens the set in fine form, setting the album's dominant slow waltz tempo and melancholic yearning mood as things move on through the Appalachian ambience, Is It You? (which also appears in a bonus duet version with Radiogram's Ken Beattie) adding a flicker of honky tonk torch while the likes of Unsatisfied (a definite hint of Parton here), Beautiful Child (Texicali flavoured), Porchswing and the warbling title track chime with the sort of old school traditional country musical values upon which people like the Louvins were raised.
She may not arrive in the UK accompanied by the same buzz of recent country songbirds, but once ears latch on to the simple gems it contains, the excellent bittersweet waltzing New Year's Eve At The Legion in particular, she's going to find herself lauded up there with Laura Cantrell.
Mike Davies
Harking back to the 70s folk tradition and apparently designed to evoke old British vocal traditions such as church hymns, communal singing and folk ballads, the trio's fifth album takes rather more work than usual. Partly this is because the tracks, themselves rarely longer than three and a half minutes, are punctuated by three brief 'field recordings' of guitar instrumental fragments and the unaccompanied sea shanty Wesley that, while delightful in their own right, feel awkward in the overall structure. Likewise, touches such as the mingling of Eastern rhythms and drones with bluegrass shades that percolate through When The Rose From The Weeds, The Everlasting Arm, Tiny Tim and Avro No 1 seem at odds with their prevailing English trad folk colours.
That said, there's moments of immediate loveliness. An upbeat, catchy meeting place between CS&N, Simon & Garfunkel and Don Partridge, Amsterdam is a banjo picking love song to the joys of backpacking freedom while Cast Into The Storm is a nigh acapella sea shanty hymn with handclaps and hurdy gurdy psychedelia fade out.
Persistence also brings rewards with Tiny Tim slowly revealing itself to be a delicate broken hearted song that could have Snow Patrol fans in a swoon while the opening Furlough is a soaring dark folk lullaby and both the gently waltzing Harryhausen and Swear It Will Snow splice English pastoral moods with country sways and West Coast harmonies. Oddly, the breathily acoustic Marie Alexander calls to mind nothing less than Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album. Those looking for other touchstones might hear shades of Matthews Southern Comfort to On Every Stone.
On the penultimate, slightly hippie-like anthemic The Sky, they turn into The Polyphonic Spree and sing 'we're wasting our time again, but we make beautiful stuff. And that might be enough'. For those prepared to spend the effort looking, it might just be.
www.candidatesite.co.uk
www.myspace.com/candidateband
Mike Davies, Sept 2007
Candidate - Under The Skylon (Snowstorm)
Following up an album based around the Wicker Man was always going to pose a few problems, wanting to hold on to the swell of interest it had created but not wishing to restrict themselves by repeating the thematic concept. So what they've done is to use the skyscraping South Bank's sculpture that featured prominently in the 1951 Festival of Britain (hence the instrumental intro May 4th, 1951) before being dismantled by the new government as inspiration and metaphor for the construction and destruction of a relationship.
Looking for a bigger sound than the simple arrangements of Nuada, using Neil Young, Big Star and The Hollies as their inspirational guidelines, the result is, perhaps inevitably, a ride through emotional ups and downs on songs that variously afford country jangles, 60s pop harmonies and surges of sonic guitar storms.
They set a high standard for themselves from the outset with Going Outside, a marvellous train rhythm psychedelic folk number that calls to mind Men Without Hats, and then proceed to not only maintain but exceed it with such tumbling nuggets of clearwater effervescence as the jubilantly in love Gardens, the acoustic strummed Moving An Oil Rig and the Young-like Lay Me On The Line.
You want soaring anthemic crescendos, try Nothing Between Us But Sky or A Lifetime From Now; feel like a witty use of imagery for fading love, that'll be Mountain Snow; trad folk sounding despair? - here's Falling Leaves; want to put a goodbye song on repeat play until your heart recovers, select Glass Skylon. In short, another fine album from one of the still most criminally undervalued bands in the country. They get my vote though.
Mike Davies
As movie buffs will realise, the title comes from the name of the sun god worshipped by the islanders in cult 1972 British horror film The Wicker Man. With the depressing news that a remake is afoot starring Nicolas Cage, here's something to cheer, a concept modern folk album inspired by both the film's themes and Paul Giovanni's haunting score.
Immersing themselves in the film's atmosphere by staying in the same hotel used by Edward Woodward's character, meeting the locals and recording in such scene setting west Scotland locations as a deserted church and between the legs of the wicker man prop on the brow of a cliff, they returned home to assemble their musical thoughts and sufficiently impressed Bert Jansch to have him contribute a guitar solo on the instrumental Burrowhead.
The result's a pastoral earthy folk album but one veined with hints of darkness, evidenced from the start with Barrel of Fear and later on the in times of trouble hymnal Save Us, and reflecting the film's pagan themes on the three part vocal structured fertility ballad Sowing Song. They know how to craft folk music these boys. Listen to the instrumental Tomorrow's Tomorrow where haunting flute plays against the finger-picked guitar with its aural images of leafy glades and running streams. Beautiful Birds is a wholly successful attempt at writing a modern day middle ages lament for a distant lover (what the band terms of a medieval Wichita Lineman) while Song of the Oss (named for Hobby Horse that features in Padstow's Mayday revels) is another instrumental, a joyous celebratory folk dance tune, before moving into the sexual awakening themed Circle of Ash, a number that begins with ominous trepidation but slowly swells with added harmonies, to become a song of exultation.
The gently crooning Rain On The Roof switches traditions somewhat with its banjo/guitar structure, although the use of harmonium brings it home from Appalachia and into age old English churches. Island 34 is another guitar instrumental, bracing with coastal salty breezes and the taste of loam, and the whole thing comes to the end credits with Modern Parlance, a simple stomping slow frenzy clump around the dance hall with more guitar and banjo, horns, one long unending bass note rumble, woozy chorus vocals (inspired apparently by a drunken session singing Creeque Alley) and ending on the same three held notes as in the film's origial score.
Like all good folk songs, the lyrics speak as much of living now and of the writers themselves as the ostensible subject matter that inspires them, and while there's not a Carthy, Waterson, Rusby or Lakeman in sight, it fully warrants being up there in the running when it comes to considering the genre's finest achievements. The album also comes with a CD-Rom documentary detailing the band's visit to the Wicker Man's locations and their thoughts on the project.
Mike Davies
Noddy Holder famously said - It's Christmasssssssssssss" and each year we get a raft of Christmas related albums and singles to listen to for a couple of weeks before discarding. Blues rock legends Canned Heat are no different to most bands and have released an album that spans history. There are two versions of the band here with three tracks from the original, and best loved, line-up. The bands first delve into Christmas records happened when Skip Taylor met Ross Bagdasarian of Chipmunks fame in 1968 and they decided that it would be a good idea to have The Chipmunks record with The Heat. The result was The Christmas Song and it is so surreal. It has its humorous moments as the Chipmunks butt in and I think that by not using this song, the advertising people have missed a great opportunity with the new Chipmunks movie coming out for the holiday period. However, they did not miss the chance to use Christmas Blues for a Heineken advert from 2003 to 2005. There are three versions of the song on offer, a standard 12 bar blues, a painfully slow, grungy alternative version with harmonica on form and Dr John on piano and a more upbeat bonus live version with Eric Clapton guesting on guitar and John Popper from Blues Traveller on harp and vocals. Other tracks include seasonal favourites Deck The Halls and Jungle Bells, both given the Canned Heat treatment. Nothing is sacred as the boys turn their attention to Boogie Boy (Little Drummer Boy) and the Christmas cheer is spread with lines such as 'children need to guns when we got the boogie'. Another well known track is Santa Claus Is Coming To Town and this is turned into a swinging instrumental but they also give us Santa Claus Is Back In Town, which is a rousing boogie. Add a classic Heat boogie on Christmas Boogie and a tearful barroom blues, I Won't Be Home For Christmas, and you've just about covered all of the holiday emotions. Don't Worry, Santa will soon be here.
David Blue December 2007
David Kidman
Canned Heat - Friends In The Can (Ruf Records)
"Don't Forget To Boogie!" said Fito de la Parra (drums, vocals) band leader of Canned Heat. Canned Heat certainly haven't. Despite the untimely deaths of three members of the band - Alan (Blind Owl) Wilson in 1970, Bob (The Bear) Hite in 1981 and Henry Vestine in 1997, Heat have stayed true to their mid-60s roots and have cooked up regular servings of timeless boogie and blues. No one will ever forget their joyful scene-setting and era-defining Goin' Up The Country from the film Woodstock but - as is often the case when a band keeps on going - some albums are more memorable and satisfying than others. Friends In The Can is in the memorable and satisfying category.
It's a surprise package - it comes in a very collectable tin can. The German 1st edition from Ruf Records comes in a square one and the US version in a circular one. Inside is the music - driving boogie/ blues moved along by the band - now consisting of Stan Behrens (flute, saxophone, harmonica, vocals), Greg Kage (bass, vocals), Dallas Hodge (vocals, guitar), 'J.P.' John Paulus (guitar, slide-guitar) and the aforementioned Fito. Vocal and guitar leads are alternated between band members and some good friends and ex-band members (John Lee Hooker, Taj Mahal, Walter Trout, Corey Stevens), Robert Lucas, Henry Vestine, Harvey Mandel and Roy Rogers). Larry Taylor guests on upright bass and Mike Finnigan on organ.
There're some of the tastiest guitar solos I've heard in a long time - nothing really flamboyant, just straight-up quality with everyone and everything working together. It's a collaboration which celebrates 36 years of Canned Heat and pays tribute "to the band's major, musical influence ... John Lee Hooker" (listen to John Lee talking about Canned Heat on I'll Never Get Out Of These Blues Alive). There's their old favourite Let's Work Together (Wilbert Harrison), JLH's essential Little Wheel and plenty of original songs which sound like they've been around a long time. All wonderful stuff and bound to end up on my Top 20 list at the end of the year.
www.cannedheatmusic.com
www.rufrecords.de
Sue Cavendish
Laura Cantrell - The Hello Records (Spit & Polish)
It's good to see that Cantrell's profile and following is sufficiently established here to warrant the release of these 1996 recordings, produced by John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants and originally only available through the subscription-only Hello Recording Club. It's just five tracks long, but provides a useful blueprint for the old school bluegrass and country albums that would eventually follow. Cellar Door, one of the first songs she wrote, jogs along like an old-tyme barnyard crooner with plinking mandolin, while the bluegrass again blooms on Roll Truck Roll, penned as an answer song to Red Simpson's same titled truck driver's tune. No Place For Me was initially begun as a female perspective country pop song for Garth Brooks, though, possibly because she decided he'd probably not record what sounds like a tale of emotional cruelty sung by a honky tonk devil and set to an old hymn tune, it never made it to his ears. Inspired by a friend's teleplay about a cursed high school, The Curse of Hook Mountain is probably best described as the theme tune to a 70s teen horror as written by the Be Good Tanyas. Finally, recorded live at a 1993 radio show broadcast from the presenter's back porch, Lee Harvey Was A Friend Of Mine is a cover of a song she found on a Homer Henderson single, a Guthrie-ish contribution to the who shot JFK debate as seen from the perspective of a young guy from Dallas who Oswald used to take fishing as a kid. Not essentials perhaps, but great to have around to provide a little formative history. It's also being released as part of a twin pack with When The Roses Bloom Again.
Mike Davies
It's been two long years since Cantrell made her debut with Not The Tremblin' Kind, prompting John Peel to pronounce it possibly his favourite album of his life. While this may have a bit impulsive, I'd certainly put it up there with the best albums I've heard in the past decade. Now the Nashville born, NYC based performer and regular host of weekly country show Radio Thrift Shop on Jersey City's WFMU returns with a second collection of covers and originals that prompt a case of the raptures all over again.
Working with many of the same musicians who played on the previous album, it's further evidence of her fondness for vintage country and a no fuss, no frills approach to socking it across. She's possessed of a pure and vulnerable voice that's part buttermilk, part crystal mountain stream and part sitting on the haystack with your best sweetheart as the fireflies flicker in the night air, and when she sings its like she's strumming the strings of your heart.
The covers range from the work of contemporary New York writers to a clutch of old timers. All The Same To You is a tumbling slice of breezy twangy pop from Joe Flood that features the great line "I'd like to buy the world an aspirin and slip it in their Coke," Don't Break The Heart with its ringing pedal steel tips the hat to Amy Rigby, the infectious Byrdsian Vaguest Idea with its cascading waterfall 12 string guitar comes courtesy of Dan Prater while Dave Schramm provides the slow swaying anti-war protest song Conquerer's Song.
Moving to the old timers, the war theme's picked up by the title track which buffs may well recognise as the old folk-hewn 'soldier singing to the girl he left behind' number attributed to A.P. Carter and recently recorded for but not included on the Wilco/Billy Bragg Mermaid collaboration Avenue under the belief it was a Woody Guthrie lyric.
Then Yonder Comes A Freight Train sees her kicking up a fine pair of bluegrass heels riding the rails of the old Jim & Jesse tune in a manner that just makes you want to shout out yeehaw.
The album closes with Oh So Many Years, a fabulous honky tonk waltz around the tearstained C&W ballad originally immortalised by Webb Pierce and Kitty Wells. It's Wells, of course, to whom Cantrell has been much compared, a point underscored by her own Broken Again.
As with her debut, while the covers may be quite magnificent, it's her own songs that are the brightest jewels. A disarmingly simple love song, the opening Too Late For Tonight musically reprises I'm Not The Tremblin' Kind as she sings "I've been sitting all night listening to my records...", then Early Years is a gentle bittersweet story of a naive young fan who falls for a singing star and gets her heart broken when things turn sour, set to a break for the border flavour with Iris DeMent colours. And finally in an all too small a selection, there's the Appalachian biosong Mountain Fern, the story of 40s hillbilly singer Molly O'Day who, just to keep the baton passing thread in motion, was a major influence of Kitty Wells.
There's no glitz, no razzle, no big PR generated hype, no tabloid tales to tell. There's just the music. Cantrell needs nothing else. She's the real thing.
www.lauracantrell.com
www.wfmu.org/audiostream
Mike Davies
Laura Cantrell - Not The Tremblin' Kind (Spit & Polish)
Nashville born, New York based and released on a Scottish label, Cantrell had her own Big Apple radio show on WFMU where she hosts the influential Radio Thrift shop basically playing the sort of stuff she's into. Translate that approach to performance and you'll find her leanings towards the Nanci Griffith, Emmylou and Lucinda Williams collections, though with a rougher vocal edge that mixes some ground glass with the molasses.
For the album she's trawled songs by New York artists she's heard live, most notable being George Usher's title track, Amy Allison's classic honky tonker The Whisky Makes You Sweeter, Dan Prater's Do You Ever Think Of Me which sounds like the Mavericks should have gotten there sooner, and Somewhere, Some Night, an old school Nashville country tune from Melba's brother Carl Montgomery.
However, gems though these may be, they're rhinestones compared to Cantrell's own skewed road song Churches of the Interstate and Queen Of The Coast, a tale of a downwardly mobile ageing country singer that could have been found in Gram Parsons attic.
Mike Davies
Enterprising Scottish label Footstompin' Records never lets us down! Their latest release comes from a new five-strong outfit arising from the Edinburgh session scene, Cantrip, which comprises John Bews and Gavin Marwick (fiddles), Dan Houghton (Border and Highland pipes, flutes, whistles, bouzouki), Cameron Robson (guitar, bouzouki, banjo) and Ian Willis (percussion). Names that will be familiar in other contexts too I'm sure - think Iron Horse and Sandy Brechin, while John's also appeared on Malinky's latest album Three Ravens - so their personal credentials aren't in any doubt. Silver is a spirited and sprightly collection of tracks gathering up sources and influences ranging from trad Scottish and Irish through to Scandinavian and Breton, blended together really naturally and with buckets of wit and skill much in evidence in both the playing and the arranging. The aptness of the group name is everywhere conveyed on Cantrip's disc - it's a Scots word meaning an antic or piece of mischief, as the insert puckishly mentions in the notes to track ten. Compositions mix self-penned with traditional, as you might expect from such an eclectic display of musicianship. And what musicianship! - the weaving of the twa fiddles is a particular delight, while Ian's drumming syncopates delightfully yet fair keeps the listener's feet a-stompin', and the well-judged rhythmic and melodic input of the stringed instruments perfectly counterpoints the agile whistles and pipes. And even when the pace gets quite fast the playing's lyrical rather than frenetic. Three of the tracks are solo performances - All The Seasons In A Day pairs together two delicate guitar pieces by Cameron, while Dan's pipes provide the focus for the lament Cumha Gun Ainm and (naturally) the Highland Pipe Set. It's hard not to fall for Cantrip's infectious and individual brand of folk and roots musics.
David Kidman
Canyon - Empty Rooms (Wichita)
Out of Kansas City and now based in Washington, emerging from a defunct demo outfit singer-guitarist Brandon Butler and guitarist Joe Winkle joined forces with Derek DeBorja, Dave Bryson and Evan Berodt to form Canyon in 1999. Releasing their self-titled debut in 2001, this sophomore set now provides their first UK album, the sort of wasted lo fi country and psychedelia that makes Willard Grant Conspiracy sound like Little Richard.
With melodies that feel as if they were almost too much effort to construct and yet still paint a canvass of tension across the wide open spaces, they slope their way through influences as seemingly diverse as The Beatles, Jeff Buckley, REM, Townes Van Zandt, and, judging by parts of Mansion On The Mountain, even Quicksilver Messenger Service. However, while guitar distortions, sonic waves and, yes, sleigh bells, find their way into the tapestry, for the most part they weave their threads from a country loom of red streaked skies, dusty backroads, lap steel, drawled vocals and songs of loneliness and broken lives.
Harmonica wails on the nakedly sparse The Long Weekend, after hours barroom yearning drips from Other Show, Radio Driver and Lights Of Town, Ten Good Eyes the sort of roughshod soaring swayer Bob and The Band might have messed around with back in the early days, the simple closing rumble, thudding bass drum and echoey acoustic guitar of Shields, a melancholic hymnal evocative of Mickey Newbury. A grand Canyon indeed.
www.canyonrock.com
www.wichita-recordings.com
Mike Davies
They're back - with a new studio album at last (there'd been a long hiatus since 2003's Choice Language, partly due to recording plans being postponed when fiddle player Charlie McKerron broke his arm last year). Thankfully, it turns out to be a suitably strong offering that will cause the band's fans to welcome them back with open ears. As ever, Capercaillie major on creative reworkings of Gaelic song, and the opening track, Him Bò, is a very typical example - a cool, funky treatment of a puirt-a-beul with Karen Matheson's trademark super-smooth assured vocal delivery well to the fore. Unmistakable Capercaillie, as is the even more delightful clapping song from Barra which kicks off track 5, marrying lively energy with a modicum of restraint and a beautifully balanced instrumental backdrop with plenty of interest. A similarly seductive, delicious blending of acoustic textures occurs on the track 10 medley. Each track is blessed with a believable arrangement that's suitably refined - that may sound like I'm saying the album contains no new musical developments, but actually it feels as though there's a subtle evolution at work within that matter of internal balance I mentioned, for although the whole affair is faultlessly played and has an air of relaxed ease there's still an excitement, an edge to the playing and the group dynamics/interaction. As far as the repertoire is concerned, the balance is weighted heavily in favour of songs, with just three tune-sets interspersed; the latter trip along easily without seeming either unduly rushed or auto-pilot, and are characterised by the spirit of gentle innovation for which Capercaillie have always been noted. Of the vocal tracks, the mouth-music tracks are all predictably vibrant, and I also liked the contrasting finale, a gently passionate rendition of Murdo Macdonald's Leodhasach An Tir Chein which just about avoids bombast in its anthemic build-up to the close. Just two of the songs here are not in Gaelic, and the lyric of one of these (Donald Shaw's composition Soldier Boy) provides the album's title; the other, also on the same theme, is a powerful yet understated cover of John Martyn's anti-war song Don't You Go. Fine though these two unified tracks are, indeed the latter is possibly a standout in purely isolated musical terms, in the end they don't entirely fit with the rest of the album. In total I've got to say that on the evidence of the half-dozen plays I've managed to give it so far, Roses And Tears may yet rank as one of Capercaillie's best albums. It sure won't disappoint.
David Kidman
Capercaillie - Grace And Pride: The Anthology (Survival)
Cleverly subtitled "The Anthology 2004-1984", this fine two-disc, 2½-hour collection fast-forwards back in time in that very direction, beginning with three cuts from Choice Language and ending with (sadly) only one track apiece from the impossible-to-find mid-80s albums Crosswinds and Cascade, visiting each of the band's releases along the way in (for the most part) decently representative fashion and co-opting an unreleased set from the Nadurra sessions, one selection from the mail-order-only Glenfinnan release of 1995 and a couple of more obscure 12" remixes from the Delirium period along the way. No significant grouse there (sorry, couldn't resist!)… No mere cash-in either, just an honest attempt to celebrate the achievements of this leading Celtic band in bringing the concept of fusion out of the "dirty-word" status and into the forefront of creativity. Of course, it helps enormously that they've been blessed with two of the scene's most prized talents – the peerless, creamy voice of Karen Matheson and the instrumental dexterity and musical vision of co-founder Donald Shaw - but then again, countless superb musicians have passed through the band's ranks over that 20-year span, including Fred Morrison and Marc Duff, and not to need mentioning the now long-serving Messrs McKerron, McGoldrick, Lunny and Vernal from the current lineup. The set charts the band's progress from talented turbo-charged tune-merchants to purveyors of cutting-edge world/jazz-inflected Celtic music via their evangelical zeal in pioneering the bringing of Gaelic-language music to the masses - and expanding their inspiration even further before returning to their acoustic roots. A healthy dynamism and beauty go hand in hand in their sophisticated contemporary vision, whatever the musical material they treat, and this set really is worth playing end to end - for even if you're a fan and already have most of the original releases you're bound either to discover a fresh perspective or find joy in rediscovery. The blood is strong, indeed.
David Kidman
A vehicle for Philadelphia singer-songwriter Shai Halperin, now expanded into a full band project, this a fabulously schizophonic power pop affair. One minute they're chiming Byrdsian 60s psychedelic folk (Juicers) or chunky slouching rock blues (Giant Drunks) the next its Beatles nods (Going Down, Ramona) and Who influenced guitar riffery (Mounds of Money, Everyone Is A Skunk), while also lollopping on West Coast harmonies (Let Them Drink) and rocking out of the garage with Neil Young (Solid Gold). In the past Halperin's had to struggle against the predictable Strokes comparisons, but he's come of age here, confident enough to wrap up with a track called Watch It Not End (Stones) that deliberately recalls the slurry 60s country of Messrs Jagger and Co and Dirty Bitch which, defying titular expectations, reveals itself as a gentle laid back close harmony acoustic strum. Raise a glass.
Mike Davies
Before Katrina forced him and his family to relocate to Tennessee, the Alabama born singer-songwriter spent 20 years soaking up the vibes of New Orleans, clearly imbibing deep of bayou juice if the growly timbre of his voice and music is any indication.
Reminscent of early Waylon Jennings with hints of Delbert McLinton, Kristofferson, Tony Joe White and (on the honky tonking Jukebox especially) Johnny Cash, Capps draws on a life seasoned and stained by the personal and political for his storytelling.
The title track swamp stomper was inspired by the birth of son Waylon, Daddy's Eyes is a bittersweet nod back to an earlier failed marriage while the allegorical Waterhole Branch refers to a shoe burning Thanksgiving ritual annually hosted by his father Ronald. Trivia buffs will be aware that it was he who wrote Off Magazine Street, the novel that spawned the John Travolta/Scarlett Johannson film Love Song For Bobby Long, for which Capps Jr wrote the soundtrack.
If the quietly angry New Orleans Waltz offers his response to Hurricane Katrina and the political mud it stirred up, there's plenty of other local colour on the album too. New Orleans mythology pours through the verses of the bon temps swaggerer Poison that name checks Marie Levaux with Broomy a bluesy snapshot of a local homeless street sweeper. And, recognising the darker side of the Big Easy's streets, it's hard to imagine something like the drunkard's death lament cum celebration blues Ed Lee or the devil haunted Mermaid being spawned anywhere but among the bones of Southern gothic.
Raw, gritty, sharply observed and deeply felt, Capps deserves to be far better and wider known than he is. This might be the start.
www.graysoncapps.com
www.myspace.com/graysoncapps
Mike Davies January 2007
When I reviewed Cara's last CD Long Forgotten, I said it ensured that they wouldn't ever be! And yes, The Granary Steps is if anything even finer a demonstration of their thoughtful approach to Irish traditional music, responding first and foremost to its intrinsic beauty. When not purveying gentle, unhurried (yet still genuinely-felt) versions of actual tunes from the body of the Celtic Irish tradition, Cara take the sound, feel and structure of musical forms from that tradition and use it as a springboard for their own melodic inventions. Like its predecessor, The Granary Steps was recorded in Co. Roscommon, where Cara clearly feel thoroughly at home; the full sound and appealing blend of Mike Ryan (uilleann pipes, whistles, mandolin and guitar), John Rawlings (guitar) and David Oakley (violin, mandolin) here give us an hour of stimulating yet contented listening. This time, however, the trademark Cara sound is augmented on several tracks by a different guest contribution: the wonderful flute playing of Mick's Sligo cousin John Dwyer. Otherwise, The Granary Steps differs from Long Forgotten principally in that Cara only include one vocal track, which is rather a shame; The Shades Of Sweet Drumdoe (composed in the traditional style by Mick Corcoran and John Moran) is quite a lovely choice, and would prove to be one of the highlights of the new disc if the phrasing were just a little more confident in its early stages. Elsewhere, I won't go as far as to recycle the old quote that the abundance of beauty tires the soul, but the first half-dozen tracks do seem to merge into one continuous relaxed mood, and when the pace gets to pick up for a pair of jigs (The Jackpike/Down The Broom) and a further two comparatively uptempo tune-sets, this comes as a relief. There's one other aspect of this new CD with which I'm a little uneasy, and that is the actual recording, whereby there's a trace of distortion at times where instruments such as flute, fiddle and pipes seem to have been recorded at too high a level. I'm also unconvinced by what sounds like n artificial keyboard tone providing the countermelody on The Coolin (track 16). The disc goes out on a high though, with some fine mandolin work on The Andover Fist/Donegal Mazurka medley.
David Kidman February 2007
If you've never heard of Cara up to now, then you're in for a real treat – but look carefully, for they seem to hide their light under a bushel! Cara's a three-piece outfit based in North Lincolnshire, comprising Mike Ryan (uilleann pipes, whistle and mandolin), John Rawlings (guitar) and (Dave) Oakley (violin). They play "music from the Celtic tradition", which in their case means an unpretentious yet extremely well-chosen mixture of traditional and self-composed tunes and songs. I realise that description is bland, and could apply to zillions of bands, but believe me, Cara have a very special take on it all, for the gentle power of Cara's accomplished and thoughtful music-making wins you over immediately. On the slower pieces in particular (though not exclusively), you notice straightway the deeply loving way in which they approach the material, caressing the notes with a degree of real feeling that's born of proper understanding rather than any desire to over-emote for mere effect. Cara originally started out as a vehicle for exploring the potential for combining uilleann pipes and guitar, but listening to the wholly natural way in which Oakley weaves his abundantly lyrical fiddle lines round Mick's pipe melodies on tunes such as Bootyman's Umbrella, you'd think they'd been playing together all their lives!
The Cara sound is glorious and quite beautiful, yet with never a dull moment that might tempt the unwary off to sleep. On this, their third CD (get hold of Asleep Behind The Settee and The Notes In The Stones too, for a couple of hours' more sheer magic), again recorded over in Co. Roscommon, the trio are joined on a small handful of tracks by fiddle player Janey Beharrell, and the result is absolutely brilliant! The augmented Cara have a ball on a set of jigs composed by Janey herself, and later treat us to a rough-hewn, hell-for-leather rendition of The Mason's Apron. But I must mention the vocal tracks separately, for they're a rather unusual selection of songs for a group professing a bias towards the Celtic tradition. One More Day is sung with an attractively relaxed passion, while Grimsby songwriter Dave Evardson's classic lament North Wall is taken calmly and almost resignedly, seeming to play down the inherent bitterness of the lyric - yet the mood is consistently managed and in the end convinces, albeit on a different level. In complete contrast, there's the album's gently humorous number, Great Uncle's Warning, though perhaps Mike doesn't have quite the rumbustious vocal timbre needed to realise the song's fullest potential. Mike's final offering is the most successful: the title track's a really lovely, wistful and reflective composition on a timeless theme. All in all, Cara grace the airwaves with highly intelligent music-making, of a calibre you all too rarely encounter in bands playing this kind of repertoire. On this evidence, long forgotten is one thing Cara never will be.
David Kidman
Caramel Jack ...Performs songs from Low Story (World of Furr)
